BRUSSELS: EU chief Ursula vonvon der Leyen said on Sunday December 4 that the bloc must act to address the distortions created by Washington's $430 billion plan to spur climate-friendly technologies in the United States.
The European Union must take action to balance the playing field where the IRA Inflation Reduction Act or other measures create distortions, according to a speech by der Leyen at the College of Europe in the Belgian city of Bruges.
The EU countries have criticized Washington's landmark Inflation Reduction Act, a measure that sees it as anti-competitive and a threat to European jobs, especially in the energy and auto sectors.
The act, designed to increase the US transition to a low-carbon economy, contains about US $370 billion in subsidies for green energy and tax cuts for US-made electric cars and batteries.
Von der Leyen said the EU had to work with the US to address some of the most worrying aspects of the law. He said that Brussels had to adjust its own rules to facilitate public investment in the transition and to address deep grievances over US-EU trade.
The White House praised the IRA as a breakthrough in order to reignite US manufacturing and promote renewable technologies.